Well, the good news is we were able to finally pour the footers for the pool. The bad news is (shockingly) it was way more work than I had expected and we didn’t get the concrete poured until yesterday. In fact, we weren’t done until nearly 5 PM yesterday, nothing like leaving things to the last minute!
Other than the expected chore of cleaning out all the holes with their winter accumulated plethora of dirt and crap it turned out that probably 2/3 of the holes we had tediously created (almost all in bedrock!) last year were off by enough to require extensive jack hammering and even some chemical assisted rock removal.
Things started out a bit slow as my wife’s parents arrived from the Philippines the Thursday before we took off and naturally there were parties, etc. to attend. In addition to only having a few hours of daylight to work before heading off to the get-togethers, we wound up staying well past my normal bed time. Friday night we didn’t get home until after 2 AM on Saturday, Saturday night we didn’t get to bed until after 4 AM Sunday! Sunday night we managed to beg off and got to bed around 12:30 AM on Monday, so were finally able to start regular work on Monday.
The parties were the usual ‘small family get-together’ of 30-40 people. It took me a while to get used to the noise and action, but now when I get to a party with ‘only’ 20 people it feels strange. We played a lot of poker (due in large part to some of the family not really understanding poker, we stick with Texas Holdem) and because my brother-in-law insisted on playing no-limit we were able to change our normal routine and have some more fun. Well, I didn’t really have any fun until Sunday evening because I got thoroughly shellacked on Friday and Saturday and had to play conservative because I kept winding up with the losing hand on my all-in efforts. I almost made up for the earlier losses on Sunday and was finally able to play the game I prefer.
My wife took a video of the concrete pour, I aim to stick it on YouTube soon and will provide a link for those who might be interested. I am glad this milestone is finally achieved, after ‘only’ a year. Hopefully the pace of progress will pick up a bit now that we are in the more familiar area of construction.
Thank you all for your patience!
